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Poetry/General
A few key pointers that are mostly for poetry but certainly aren't to be ignored in other writing as well. As usual, any rule can be ignored with particularly good reason, but they are helpful the majority of the time. Things to avoid: *Clichés: : Both of concept and of phrase. If you're describing something in a way you've seen a hundred times before (eg 'A white blanket of snow'), then don't. It's inevitably going to sound cheesy. Or maybe that's what you're going for. *Archaisms: : Ie. Purposely writing in old classical english to make yourself sound more profound and poetic. All it really does is make you sound four hundred years out of date. *Inversions: : A subsection of the above. Basically, don't try to sound like Yoda or Maniwa Shirasagi just to fit the meter. Think of something more natural. *Adjectives/adverbs: :Use them sparingly. Especially avoid the woolly ones like 'beautiful', 'painful', etc. that mean different things to different people. Show, don't tell. Adjectives are often unnecessary clutter and have been done to death. Be precise and concise. Writing lets the most people in when it's specific as possible. *Passive tense: :A matter of acting vs being acted upon. :Eg. Instead of 'The man was bitten by the dog', use 'The dog bit the man' to make things more energetic. Though of course, use the first one if detachment happens to be what you're going for. : 'Also to be noted:' * 'Poetry is a sound' :Bolded because it's extra important. Even if it's not poetry, read your work out loud. See how it feels to the ear. Try and even get someone to read it out loud to you or vice versa, if you can. (Though with userbase in mind you're probably going to be stuck reading it to yourself. That's fine, too.) *'Show, don't tell' :I'll explain this for the benefit of those who haven't heard of it before: : The basic concept is that if you want to get information across, show your readers the fact being applied rather than just telling them straight out. Don't bother saying 'X is a very mean guy', show X punching some homeless orphan. : That sort of thing. : (By the way, this is really common and basic advice and therefore one of the guidelines that's successfully disregarded quite often. Keep it in mind but by no means let it stop you from 'telling' if you think it's appropriate.) *Concrete, not abstract :Related to the avoidance of adjectives: Nouns directly connected with something physical bring images to mind much more quickly. When I say 'brick', you think of a brick. But when I say something like 'power', who knows what image that brings up. This doesn't mean to completely avoid the abstract, but keep it in mind. *Anything that distracts should be removed *'Everything' counts: :Every word, line-break, space, punctuation mark, stanza break, caesura. Mostly applies to poetry but not to be ignored in other forms of writing. *Murder your darlings: :An painful but often effective concept. Remove any lines you particularly like. :It's actually quite a well-known concept among writers. :The way I imagine it is that it forces you to bring the rest of the writing up to a better standard; it's to stop yourself from being satisfied with a passage as a whole just because you're very satisfied with a single bit in it while the rest is mediocre.